YNAB Personal Budget Software & Finance Forums

[malisab]

macduncan's post brings up a great point...there are many of us who DO immerse ourselves (obsess? who me?) over new things (tutorials, forums, etc.) and then there are those who don't. One question to ask is how can we get more people to WATCH a quickstart video before they get frustrated by this or that? Since I have Basic, I don't know what downloads with Pro...but maybe having a Quickstart video download with initial purchases that has giant letters saying WATCH ME FIRST or something of the sort. Then, in the welcome email, sending them a reminder and link to watch. Then a week later...another. (For those who think they don't need it then get frustrated and have forgotten about it.) Something like that.

[erin]

Thanks for these thoughts you guys, I appreciate it. I'll work on a quick start video as well. To add to the discussion, I'd be interested in hearing from folks who struggled getting started. What would have made it easier?

We definitely have some things in mind to help beginners, but the more info the better. I hate to lose people before they've really even begun.

[xraymd]

To add to the discussion, I'd be interested in hearing from folks who struggled getting started. What would have made it easier?

Greetings, erin, I realize the discussion so far is more about topic than content but here is a thought: what about creating a fictional YNAB user - maybe modeled after a real one! - who faced all the usual challenges at the outset (no buffer, already owing next month more than they earn, credit card debt, no savings, lumpy expenses like Christmas or car insurance not accounted for ahead of time, etc, etc) and create a tutorial showing the step-by-step, paycheck-by-paycheck actions they took to solve this, and what exactly did they do in the YNAB software that helped them. Of course it would stretch out over several months but it could be set up to demonstrate the upcoming months during the same video (instead of a video series).

Sometimes I think a story that illustrates how something works can make it apply better than showing features and what they do (that is also needed for the already enlightened but I am thinking of the right scared and about to sink below the surface).

It could be there is already a video like this (forgive me if so! I don't remember seeing it) but if not, I was thinking of Kristen's story as a ferinstance - the one that is placed on the front page of the YNAB forum.

xraymd

[WairereRose]

Thanks for these thoughts you guys, I appreciate it. I'll work on a quick start video as well. To add to the discussion, I'd be interested in hearing from folks who struggled getting started. What would have made it easier?

Knowing that the registers are what affect the budget page as far as income goes. You can't enter income on the budget page. Happily I've seen others post on that too so I know I'm not alone, but when I started out I went straight to the budget page to get going, entered all my category figures, and couldn't work out how to get the 'in' money to work. The concept of a program that needed more than one place/page to work from was quite alien to me - I'm not very good with excel either...

[erin]

Knowing that the registers are what affect the budget page as far as income goes. You can't enter income on the budget page. Happily I've seen others post on that too so I know I'm not alone, but when I started out I went straight to the budget page to get going, entered all my category figures, and couldn't work out how to get the 'in' money to work. The concept of a program that needed more than one place/page to work from was quite alien to me - I'm not very good with excel either...

This is an excellent point and well taken. I already have one planned called "How the register affects the budget". This is something I have seen quite often as well, so hopefully this video will clear up some of the confusion regarding this and make people realize the two screens are connected.

[ejprosse]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but we tend to work from a pool of cash in our savings and transfer our "budget" into our checking each month. Using YNAB, this is not really a big deal, but we do find that each month we may be building too much in a cat. and too little in another so we need to shift that budgeted amount around. Do you have a video that does this?

[erin]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but we tend to work from a pool of cash in our savings and transfer our "budget" into our checking each month. Using YNAB, this is not really a big deal, but we do find that each month we may be building too much in a cat. and too little in another so we need to shift that budgeted amount around. Do you have a video that does this?

If you are referring to "tweaking the budget" and moving money from one category to another, then yes, that is already on my list!

If that's not what you meant, please clarify.

[YYC27]

macduncan's post brings up a great point...there are many of us who DO immerse ourselves (obsess? who me?) over new things (tutorials, forums, etc.) and then there are those who don't. One question to ask is how can we get more people to WATCH a quickstart video before they get frustrated by this or that? Since I have Basic, I don't know what downloads with Pro...but maybe having a Quickstart video download with initial purchases that has giant letters saying WATCH ME FIRST or something of the sort. Then, in the welcome email, sending them a reminder and link to watch. Then a week later...another. (For those who think they don't need it then get frustrated and have forgotten about it.) Something like that.

I'll be honest .. I never watch video tutorials. It's just not the way I like to learn about things. I get frustrated by the pace, and if I'm looking something up at work, I don't need everyone around me hearing it. I'd much rather just read something (with pictures .. I do like pictures). If I was nagged periodically by the software / e-mails to watch a video, I'd get very annoyed.

[Jeremiah]

Erin,

It may be something already on your list, but I would like to know how to track investments in YNAB 3 and also does YNAB have the ability to track "Networth"?

[Mudie]

A "How to start if you are overdrawn" one would be good too as you could convey so much simply by speaking at first with little else actually happening on screen.

A good dose of 'You can do this!' encouragement so to speak as well as the how-to of course.

Steve

[erin]

Thanks for the great feedback everyone! I'm glad I put up this post.

Great ideas all around. You may not see all these ideas with the initial release, but I'll get as many done as I can and try to organize things in an effective way.

One thing you will see is help built into the program. When you go to the help section, there will be a list of all the videos created and clicking on one will take you to the video on the YNAB website. It won't be too "in your face" but it will be there with easy access should you need them.

And yes, there will be written directions with some graphics.

[WairereRose]

One thing you will see is help built into the program. When you go to the help section, there will be a list of all the videos created and clicking on one will take you to the video on the YNAB website. It won't be too "in your face" but it will be there with easy access should you need them.

Nice workaround - not in your face, but there if you need it. I like that idea very much. There have been occasions where I've wondered what the video might show me, but I've been too lazy to hunt it out (web surfing is just not my thing and if there's no immediate link I'm unlikely to go hunting unless I really have a bee in my bonnet). For that reason I haven't viewed most of the videos at all. The link would have been posted, it would have been an occasion I had time to watch one or maybe two, and of course next time I came back the thread showed read so I never got back to them.

Will those links be hardwired into the program? Sometimes web addresses change - I guess changes could be included in software updates as they happen, so that the latest links are always there and working.

[Zatoichi]

Hello Erin,

Just want to say great job on the tutorials. I am visually impaired and the tutorials were a great help. The pace and the descriptions of where to click and what to expect in the dialogue boxes made it easy for me to determine what was happening on the screen.
I think the only thing that was missing was keeping track of off budget accounts, as this is helpful when trying to pay down debt. When I first started I could not get the budget totals to match my accounts but through the help of post on the forum I was able to get it to work.

Keep up the good work!

Zatoichi

[Empulse]

Hi Erin!

When I was first starting out, the videos helped a great deal! Thank you for them, by the way.

One thing that I really appreciated about them was their brevity. Each one zeroed in on a specific topic and it was easy to find the
info (and related info) in them. If you are wanting introductory or overview videos...that sounds great. But please, can we keep
the shorter length for most of them? I am positive I will need to reference one at some point, and am going to have to struggle with *where* in the
video it covered what I needed. I would much rather have five 4 minute videos than one 20 minute video that I have to shuttle back and forth
'in search of'

Empulse

[erin]

One thing that I really appreciated about them was their brevity. Each one zeroed in on a specific topic and it was easy to find the info (and related info) in them. If you are wanting introductory or overview videos...that sounds great. But please, can we keep
the shorter length for most of them?

I completely agree with the idea of keeping them brief. That is always my goal - to keep them as short as possible - yet clearly cover the content of the video. I plan to do some videos that are "Concept" oriented - that are designed to explain the methodology or a certain concept/idea, and then some that are "here's where you click to do this". I expect concept videos to be a little longer since I'm doing more explaining and teaching, but I definitely wouldn't want anything too long.

I will definitely keep length in mind. Were any of the existing videos too long?